FlowForge File Nodes

FlowForge File Nodes

Node-RED instances running within FlowForge include a set of nodes that make it possible to store files safely regardless of the environment. Cloud based instances can read and write to persistent storage using these nodes. Edge devices will store files on its local filesystem.

Enabling Persistent File Storage

These nodes are enabled by default on the FlowForge Cloud platform. If you're running a self-hosted environment you should follow the next steps.

FlowForge file nodes replace the core Node-RED file nodes. To make use of these nodes, the FlowForge platform Administrator must ensure the core file nodes are not loaded.

This is done by adding 10-file-js in the Exclude nodes by filename section of your instance settings under the Palette section.

This setting is modifiable only by a Team owner and only if it has not been locked in the template by the platform Administrator.

Nodes

There are two nodes in the File Node collection:

• file - A file node for writing to persistent storage
• file in - A file node for reading from persistent storage

Usage

Simply drop the file nodes into your flows as you would with the regular file nodes in Node-RED. There are some helpful built-in examples on the Import Examples dialog in Node-RED.

Deployment Considerations

When a snapshot is deployed to a device, the original Node-RED file nodes are used and any files will be stored on the device's local filesystem.